A gas turbine engine generally includes, in serial flow order, a compressor section, a combustion section, a turbine section and an exhaust section. In operation, air enters an inlet of the compressor section where one or more axial or centrifugal compressors progressively compress the air until it reaches the combustion section. Fuel is mixed with the compressed air and burned within the combustion section to provide combustion gases. The combustion gases are routed from the combustion section through a hot gas path defined within the turbine section and then exhausted from the turbine section via the exhaust section.
In particular configurations, the turbine section includes, in serial flow order, a high pressure (HP) turbine and a low pressure (LP) turbine. The HP turbine and the LP turbine each include various rotatable turbine components such as a rotor shaft, rotor disks mounted or otherwise carried by the rotor shaft, turbine blades mounted to and radially extending from the periphery of the disks, and various stationary turbine components such as stator vanes or nozzles, turbine shrouds, and engine frames. The rotatable and stationary turbine components at least partially define the hot gas path through the turbine section. For example, the gas turbine buckets or blades generally have an airfoil shape designed to convert the thermal and kinetic energy of the flow path gases into mechanical rotation of the rotor. As the combustion gases flow through the hot gas path, thermal energy is transferred from the combustion gases to the rotatable and stationary turbine components. Such gas turbine engines are commonly employed on an aircraft.
During operation, various gas turbine engine components are subjected to operational loads and/or environmental conditions that can lead to dimension distortions of the parts. Though some distortion is acceptable, distortion above a certain threshold may require component repair or replacement. As such, it is important to inspect such components for distortion throughout operation of the gas turbine engine. Conventional methods of component inspection require removal of the part from the gas turbine engine for further inspection, e.g. using a coordinate measuring machine (CMM) or a white light inspection system. Such methods, however, are time-consuming and expensive as they require engine downtime and reduce time on-wing.
In view of the aforementioned, an improved system and method for inspecting gas turbine engine components that does not require removal of the components would be advantageous.